First of all, you can choose the type of the global landscape. So, on the islands you will have less room for expansion, but the aggressors will not attack too early. On the big continent, it will take time until you find a neighbor, even though it all depends on the number of competitors and additional worlds. If you remember, in the Master of Magic there was the very classical dungeon level, inhabited by other magical civilizations, and there were many treasures hidden.

The developers have gone further, offering you up to additional 6 worlds for exploration, where you can expect treasures, guarding monsters and discovery opportunities. These realms can be accessed through the portals. Amongst other startup settings in Warlock: Master of the Arcane you can select four options for the world size, 5 levels of difficulty controlling the amount of AI privileges and the number of opponents, ranging from one to eight. You can then move on to the process of creating your faction’s leader, where there are predefined male and female avatars of characters or basic templates letting you choose initial perks and spells.

Here, I would suggest to abandon any one-time resource bonuses in the favor of a long-running abilities improving your realm management skills. Although, of course, you will still have to spend some points on less important things not to let them go wasted. It doesn’t matter much, which basic spells you select for the start, because over time you will unlock them all and even much more powerful ones. More important would be the choice of your race, where currently there are three factions: Human, Monsters and Undead. What is particularly nice, unlike other games of the genre your decision will not leave you with only one set of units in the game featuring several dozens of various species. I will get back to this a bit later.

Your main stronghold in the strategy Warlock: Master of the Arcane is the realm’s capital city. With its loss your civilization can get destroyed, so always think about the protection of towns, because the wondering bandits are usually formed in the immediate vicinity of the settlements, what is not very convenient. Also sometimes you will be offered divine quests and their battle objectives are usually located near a particular populated area, so additional garrison forces could make it easier for you to complete such war tasks.

In cities you can build, but there is no ability to demolish structures making you carefully weight every decision. Although there is, actually, a button for removing the buildings, but I’ve neither seen it active nor been able to use it by clicking. Additional restriction doesn’t let you construct anything on water tiles, so even your shipyards are now land-based. The economy model tries to balance itself just with three resource types: Food, Gold and Mana. Accordingly, each building requires money for maintenance, food is absorbed by the units, and mana feeds your magical creatures. If you try to expand too rapidly, the risk is to go bankrupt because of the rising upkeep costs.

A good way out of difficult situations in the Warlock: Master of the Arcane game is choosing a moderate pace of expansion. In addition to capturing enemy cities that are always losing a part of their wealth, when chaning hands, you can train settlers units to found new towns in attractive places making the boundaries of the empire wider. When choosing a site for laying a new piece of your realm, it’d good to look at its surroundings. It isn’t wise to work with regions, where there are many barren tiles around, which you wouldn’t be able to use. I nearly forgot that at the start you could also select the shape of the game world. It might be cylindrical or flat reflecting the possibility to jump instantly from the right map border to the left one and vice versa.

All the city buildings can be divided into economic and military groups. Eventually, you will increase your food production levels at the expense of your money wealth, while giving more opportunities to the local merchants will take away the vaulable space. Also it is important right from the start to improve your Mana balance, and there are special energy collectors for this case. Each building decision will cost you a certain amount of resources and one invaluable working tile. Besides, nearly any construction process needs money investments. Therefore, any your town could get unique specialization, depending on its population, native race, available resources and your own administrative policy.

Similar to Civilization, you will have to deal with resources, but Warlock: Master of the Arcane introduces many more their types. They range from various mineral deposits to precious ancient ruins unlocking unique buildings and military guilds. The main concept of the game comes with offering you to commant approximately 70% of all the available in-game units thanks to the possibility of occuping enemy cities.

Read on further to learn about the units and waging wars in Warlock: Master of the Arcane.

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Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Review

Warlock: Master of the Arcane:

A new turned-based strategy game is once again set in the fantastical world of Ardania, popularized in the Majesty (2000-2012) franchise. The title invites players to take on the role of the Great Mage and build a powerful magical empire, giving mightly mages the ability to control armies and wield magic to wage war against another, as they compete with other wizards for the title of Warlock. Only the one can rule them all, and it might be you, if you defeat all the competition.

In the Warlock: Master of the Arcane game you have to develop the cities presenting the core of your realm. Construct new buildings, collect three kinds of resources, conduct the research of new spells, handle diplomacy and wage war to extend the borders of your Empire. Your actions will be challenged by Rival powerful mages, who will be ready to unleash everything they have against you, and the Gods of Ardania will also play a major part in this massive struggle for Domination.

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Previews » 1

In May of 2012 a lot of fans of the TBS-strategy titles will be able to embark on big advantures set in the Fantasy world of Ardania. In this our Preview of the upcoming Warlock: Master of the Arcane game we will provide you with our Hands-On impressions about its notable features. More »

Review » 1

May has become a notable month for those, who like Fantasy video games, since the new Turn-based Strategy titled Warlock: Master of the Arcane, Review of which is already here, came to its official release. In this Review we will explore all the good and still not so good game points. More »